VA Topic Layout Best Practise

Ryax1 · ‎04-05-2022

Hi all,

I'm hoping to get some feedback on how people have laid out their Virtual Agent topics and advice on what the ServiceNow best practise is. We have multiple 'report an issue' record producers in our Service Catalog and therefore created multiple topics in Virtual Agent to match these. It was seen as 'messy' when all these topics were laid out in the 'Show me everything' Topic picker (as seen in Option 2) and we were therefore asked to create an overarching 'Report an issue' topic which within it, points to all the different report an issue topic blocks (as per Option 1).

From an aesthetical point of view it does look better, however I am concerned that all utterances for these 'sub-topics' now need to be linked to the 'Report an issue' topic and I fear that this method is not recommended.

Option 1 - Categorised into 'Sub-topics':

Option 2 - All in the 'Show me everything' Topic picker:

Can anyone share if they have done something similar, or any ServiceNow gurus advise what the best practise is? Should the initial Topic Picker just be a big long list?

Thanks in advance.

Rich

Andy Lilly · ‎04-05-2022

So I have them as topics and not topic blocks which then enables the NLU. I then use a static choice to determine which specific topic is needed with a script - vaSystem.switchTopic('') to deflect to the individual topics.

In order to hide the specific topics from the main topic picker, I navigate to sys_cs_topic.list table and set the "is topic visible" = false. This hides it from the topic picker but still enables NLU to work when directly searching for the topic.

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Community Alums · ‎04-05-2022

Hi,

This is the correct layout which you have shared.

For more information refer this link :https://docs.servicenow.com/bundle/rome-now-intelligence/page/administer/virtual-agent/concept/desig...

Mark my answer correct & Helpful, if Applicable.

Thanks,

Sandeep

Ryax1 · ‎04-05-2022

Hi Sandeep,

I've shared 2 different options. Which is correct?

Rich

Andy Lilly · ‎04-05-2022

I have a similar decision to yours and have gone for your option 1 as I believe it to be a much better user journey. What I have done though is be more specific with the NLU for the topics, so for the initial report an issue, there are only a few utterances, and then on the specific topics like smartphone issue, the utterances are more tailored to that product if this makes sense (sorry lack of coffee)

Andy

Ryax1 · ‎04-05-2022

Hi Andy,

That's really useful to know, I totally agree that it feels like a much better user journey. Would you mind sharing how you have done NLU for the 'sub-topics'? We have these as re-usable topic blocks so cannot input NLU and therefore have lumped everything into the 'Report an issue' intent.

I did previously try having them as ordinary topics and pointing to them via script, but because they were hidden from the main topic picker the NLU didn't work for them.

Any more info would be greatly appreciated.

Richard